Bulbbul, directed by Anvita Dutt and produced by Anushka Sharma held on to the top spot in terms of popularity since the day of release on the 24th of May 2020 and continued to be among the top five movies till the end of July, 2020. There is a great buzz about the movie with woke social media experts simultaneously trashing it as well as lapping it up. Bulbbul has been the talk of the nation, at least, among the internet savvy, Netflix subscribing cinephiles amidst a raging pandemic which has forced people to stay put at home. Bulbbul’s continuing popularity is primarily based on its ability to traverse Indian cinematic traditions and genres, all the while maintaining a coherent story line in spite of dabbling in the supernatural. Bulbbul can be simultaneously labeled as a horror movie as well as a social issue drama. This essay is primarily devoted towards exploring the cultural possibilities and political ramifications of Bulbbul’s representation of Bengal.

The movie begins with an episode of child marriage in 1881 in colonial Bengal, a good ten years before the Age of Consent Act of 1891 and the ensuing controversy thereafter. What could have been a classic story of an oppressed Indian woman rescued or nurtured by progressive colonial laws and male members of the family so well narrativized by the literature of the era, turns out be a saga of relentless patriarchal oppression and an intelligent and sensitive woman’s journey towards reclaiming some form of agency amidst adversity. In the movie, the central character Bulbbul refashions herself as the protagonist of Satyajit’s story about a female demon, narrated en route to her marital household thereby stressing the importance of stories in the construction of Bulbbul and its eponymous central protagonist. Her self-refashioning from an ingénue in the Thakur family engaged in furtive literary pursuits into a femme fatale, acting as the guardian angel of battered and exploited women, smashing patriarchal authority in the process constitutes the story of Bulbbul. It is debatable whether murdering men and bolstering the myth of a witch to run scot free from law is a sure shot way of reclaiming feminist agency but that is precisely the route Bulbbul pursues. The director Anvita Dutt is a self-proclaimed feminist and strives to create a feminist tale in the context of colonial Bengal.

Almost all the men depicted in Bulbbul are more or less patriarchal, oppressive and entitled but in the end, ineffectual. Despite his definite screen presence, Rahul Bose, portraying the double role of Indranil and Mahendra has limited screen space. The somewhat daft Avinash Tiwary aka Satyajit Thakur is hardly the suave London returned barrister that he is supposed to be. He is more of an entitled feudal scion reduced to the status of a failed witch hunter strutting around with his gun on crimson hued foggy nights. There is neither depth nor intensity in his acting. Dr. Sudip played by Parambrata Chatterjee is cute and sensitive but another specimen of ineffectual Bengali men so frequently typecast in Bollywood movies and played by lead actors from Bengali movie industry like Jisshu Sengupta and Parambrata Chatterjee, himself. Tripti Dimri, so skillfully playing the role of Bulbbul has an intent gaze for everyone around, especially the men in her family. Along with the stereotyped image of Bengali women who is dusky, doe-eyed, financially independent and steeped in popular feminism, Bollywood also peddles the stereo-typed image of ineffectual Bengali men. The stereotyped Bengali men are always a little too sensitive to be patriarchal enough to claim their share of entitlements, in effect their beloved. Bulbbul is no different on this register. These stereo typical representations of Bengali characters in Bollywood movies perpetuate certain myths about Bengal and the Bengalis prevalent since the nineteenth century.

The film’s interesting use of inter-texuality is one of the factors contributing to its popularity and has remained comparatively less dwelled upon by myriad reviewers in national dailies and itinerant websites. The primary point of interest among reviewers is to determine and quantify the extent of feminism represented through this tale of gore, ghost and incest. Bulbbul significantly draws upon the archive of Bengali literature and cinema. There are strong resemblances of Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964), based on Rabindranath Tagore’s novella Nosto Nirh (The Broken Nest) published in 1901. Interestingly, Bulbbul depicts events supposedly happening in 1901, exactly 20 years after Bulbbul’s marriage in 1881. The intimacy between Bulbbul and Satyajit, curiously surnamed Thakur, hints at the intimacy and shared literary pursuit of not only Charu and Amal in Charulata but also Rabindranath Tagore and his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi, wife of poet’s elder brother, Jyotirindranath Tagore. There is also a considerable influence of Kadambari (2015), a recent Bengali movie directed by Suman Ghosh. Kadambari, based on the intimacy between poet Rabindranath Tagore and his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi, depicts a chain of incestuous relationship within the Tagore household. Though it remains unacknowledged, it is highly possible that the plot line of Bulbbul, barring the gothic dimensions, is somewhat influenced by Kadambari. Bulbbul’s sister-in-law is named Binodini, the role essayed by Bengali actor Paoli Dam, is also reminiscent of Tagore’s novel, Choker Bali (1903), titled Binodini in English translation. There is even a curious cinematic lineage drawn from Rituparno Ghosh’s 2003 movie, Choker Bali. Binodini also deals with an extra-marital affair between Binodini and Mahendra in the context of early-twentieth century colonial Bengal. Interestingly, in Bulbbul, Binodini’s husband’s name is Mahendra. Thus, Anvita Dutt openly acknowledges Tagore’s influence in her work. Bulbbul is also considerably influenced by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novella Devdas (1917), another literary text from colonial Bengal and its subsequent cinematic productions. Dutt’s directorial debut borrowed the concept of lavish set and costumes from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (2002). Bhansali’s movie created a novel kind of aesthetics permeated with lavishness for representing colonial Bengal. Dutt follows the footsteps of Bhansali showing unreal wealth of the Thakur family with a touch of the gothic.

The narrative of Bulbbul is sprinkled with snippets of Bengali cultural markers in order to create an aura of Bengaliness. The marriage ceremony, colonial style mansion, characteristic style of draping sarees, replica of Dakshineshwar temple adjacent to the mansion, abundance of wild sugarcane or Saccharum spontaneum called Kashphul in Bengali, subtle references to Tagore and his songs or celebration of Kali puja are all superficially sprinkled in order to create a sense of Bengal. Yet, there is an awful lack of research about Bengali culture and Bengali elite lifestyle of the colonial era. It is worthwhile to mention one repetitive mistake in the movie: there are a couple of instances where Bulbbul refers to her husband as “Thakur Moshai.” This is an epithet Bengali women use for Brahmin priests and not for their husband. Besides, upper caste elite women would not utter their husband’s name or surname while addressing them during the early twentieth century. It is rather disconcerting to note how this audibly jarring semantic confusion was allowed to persist with so many Bengalis in the cast and crew. But the crucial question is why situate the story in colonial Bengal? The plot of Bulbbul, replete with popular tropes could have been situated anywhere in India. Apart from furtive references to colonial law, ineffectual police system, prevalence of zamindari system, a pedophile Englishman and an old-fashioned lifestyle, what is so colonial about Bulbbul’s Bengal? In fact, the reference to colonial period serves as convenient tool for orientalizing Bengal and its social customs thereby making it easier to depict gothic horror without alienating the primary target audience from the Hindi heartland.

The politics of representing colonial Bengal in Bulbbul and most other recent Bollywood movies like Devdas (2002) is characterized with ambiguity. Such representations simultaneously strive to create an ‘other’ as well as appropriate it as the glorious and convenient past for the Indian nation state though the political, economic and cultural focus has shifted away from Bengal in general, and Kolkata in particular to the Hindi belt with Delhi as the epicenter. Therefore, a faux Bengali culture amenable to the political and cultural bias of the Indian state is created which is simultaneously similar as well as characterized by difference. Stuart Hall’s theorization in “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” speaks of the production of identity through and by representation. Hall writes, “Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think instead, of identity as a ‘production’, which is never complete, always in the process, and always constituted within and not outside, representation” (Hall 110). These cinematic representations perpetuate myths and stereotypes about Bengal and the Bengalis and create a certain degree of ‘Indianization’ of Bengali culture. In other words, localized cultural differences are erased in order to provide the audience with a feeling of familiarity and recognition along with an aura of attenuated exotica. It is through these cinematic representations that the Hindi belt at large understands contemporary Bengal and Kolkata. The appropriation of Bengal and Bengali culture is accomplished by mixing north Indian cultural elements along with Bengali cultural markers thereby producing a hybrid Indian identity which subsumes sub-national difference both politically as well as culturally.

It is possible for viewer’s uninitiated into the history of colonial Bengal to conclude that Bengal presidency was rolling in wealth from the pomp and grandeur with which colonial Bengal is depicted, instead of the huge drain of wealth the province underwent during the colonial period. In fact, since Bhansali’s Devdas, colonial Bengal is depicted with a characteristic Mughal aura with all its grandeur and pomp in subsequent Bollywood representation of colonial Bengal. This chronological crisis is deliberately created in order to cater to the primarily north-Indian Hindi speaking audience more familiar with Mughal grandeur than the Anglicized lifestyle of the crème de la crème of colonial Bengal. This mode of representation is also in sync with the glitzy representation of India prevalent in most Hindi films since economic liberalization of the 1990s. Another north-Indian element in the context of Bulbbul is the superimposition of the Radha-Krishna myth in the movie in order to bring home the angle of incest without alienating the audience. The myth of Radha-Krishna has been a convenient popular trope for representing romantic attachment as well as incestuous relationship in Hindi movies for decades. It provides a ready register of meaning for the north Indian Hindi speaking audience. The musical Binodini humming the Bengali folk song “Kolonkini Radha” in the backdrop of Bulbbul meeting Satya drives home the point without so much as a single word. The name Binodini itself has multiple registers of meaning in Bengali culture. Apart from the literary reference to the central protagonist of Tagore’s Choker Bali, already mentioned, it also refers to the famous nineteenth century Bengali actress, Noti Binodini. Binodini is also another name for the mythical Radha thereby carrying a double entendre since Binodini, herself, is implicated in an extra marital incestuous relationship with her brother-in-law, Indranil.

In order to accomplish this complex, albeit fallacious representation, certain cultural signifiers are emptied of their significance and accorded with a new meaning. Bulbbul executes that with aplomb and subtlety. The colour red is generally regarded as auspicious in Bengali culture, especially among Bengali Hindu women, symbolizing their marital status. Bulbbul is generous in focusing on red vermillion mark on the forehead or the red lac-dye painted feet signifying the marital status of both Bulbbul and Binodini. The crimson hued nights, the “blood moon” and vivid visuals of blood spilt also tend to situate Bulbbul within the tradition of the gothic. Dutt’s superb use of the colour red, situating the narrative and its characters firmly within traditional lifestyle of married Bengali women and the gothic deserves praise. In the process, she divests the colour red of its auspicious cultural overtones thereby according new cultural significance embodying diabolical supernatural elements. The abundant presence of wild sugarcane or Kashphul in Bengali, is another case in point. Bengalis associate wild sugarcane with the autumnal Durga puja festivities. It is generally considered a symbol of joy and festivity. In Bulbbul, wild sugarcane is transformed into a symbol of decay, abundantly present in and around old and dilapidated buildings and the Kali temple. In fact, goddess Kali most probably found screen space in order to bolster the aura of gothic horror since it is usually Durga puja which has always claimed the larger share of pan-Indian representation of Bengali festivities. Such superimposition of new cultural codes on traditional Bengali symbols creates cultural dissonance among Bengali viewers of the movie and provides an inauthentic understanding of Bengali culture among non-Bengali viewers.

The ‘othering’ of Bengal is accomplished by representing colonial Bengal as the site of oppressive patriarchy, child marriage, extra-marital affairs, pedophilia, incest, violence and most crucially as the locus of the gothic horror. The choice of colonial Bengal as the setting of Bulbbul is not just aesthetic or accidental but also, crucially political. This supposed aesthetic choice, presumably because of the director’s literary predilections towards Tagore, also conveniently locates these social evils at a differed point in time and space, thereby conveniently situating them as far as possible from modern India nation state and its cultural epicentre—the Hindi heartland. The locus of the gothic has always constituted the creation of the other. British gothic novels situated their plot in the Orient or in Catholic Europe, thereby highlighting its difference from protestant England. Similarly, colonial Bengal and in extension modern day province of West Bengal emerges as the ‘other’—gothic, evil or otherwise, of modern Indian nation state. This mode of representation also provides a faux originary moment for the social evils depicted in the movie and widely prevalent in modern India. Ironically, social evils such as child marriage, domestic violence are prevalent more in the Hindi heartland, the supposed ‘core’ of the Indian nation state than they are in modern day Indian province of West Bengal.

Cultural representations, including popular cinematic representations are produced within a socio-cultural milieu conducive for their production and consumption. The underlying socio-political as well as cultural bias gets reflected in any popular cultural representation. Orientalizing Bengal has become a commonplace cinematic trope in Mumbai based productions of contemporary era. Bollywood is known for sanctifying “temples of desire” by peddling narratives of the nation. It is likely that cultural productions from Bollywood will also reflect pan-national biases and prejudices. If Bulbbul is considered as an allegory of the Indian nation then the choice of Bengal as the convenient ‘other’ of the Indian nation state is most likely based on its contemporary politics and post-independence political history. The province of West Bengal has been continuously electing political parties for the state legislature, which are in opposition at the centre since 1977. In fact, top notch Bengali politicians like Jyoti Basu and Mamata Banerjee have been some of the fiercest critics of the policies of successive central governments giving the impression that the political core and ideology of Bengal is starkly different from that of the Indian state. Political dominance and electoral victory of forces subscribing to various strands of Hindutva have been thwarted in Bengal adding to the contemporary culture of ‘othering’ Bengalis in the national imaginary. Bulbbul is the most recent guised addition along that strain of cultural logic.